Quotes
regarding a Biblical/Christian Foundation in America, contrasted
byquotes
of Hitler, along with some by Marx, and Nietzsche, and which also
serve to refute the contrived historical revisionist view of
strict separationists who see the First Amendment as forbidding
any Federal or State general sanction of the Christian faith over
that of others, and even that it is antagonistic toward religion
(at least Christianity). Considering which see commentary
below.

Web
sources for most of the American authors are provided (I need to
work on the others), and more also can be found at such sources
as Wall
Builders, which provides many referenced quotes (though
Barton — as with some strict separatists — sometimes
goes too far with his conclusions, which I hope to avoid).
Note
that content from Hitler's Table Talk is disputed by some.
Defense of that is offered by an article at Rutgers here.

Karl
Marx —Communism begins where atheism begins…(Fulton
J. Sheen in “Communism and the Conscience of the West,”
translating from an untranslated work, as reported by Paul Kengor
in “the
Communist,” p. 346)

Karl
Marx —The first requisite for the happiness of the people
is the abolition of religion. (Marx
in “Contribution to the Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy
of Right,” quoted in “The Encarta Book of
Quotations,' p. 617)

Karl
Marx — I wish to avenge myself against the One who rules
above.” (Attributed
to Marx by Richard Wurmbrand, and quoted Ronald J. Lawrence in
“The Marxist Goliath Among Us”)

Karl
Marx — “The
hellish vapors rise and fill the brain, till I go mad and my
heart is utterly changed. See this sword? The prince of darkness
sold it to me.”(quoted
by Robert Payne [1968], in “Marx.” pp. 62, 130)

Karl
Marx — With disdain I will throw my gauntlet full in the
fact of the world and see the collapse of this pygmy giant. Then
will I wander god-like and victorious through the ruins of the
world. And giving my words an active force, I will feel equal to
the Creator. (From
his poem,” “Human Pride quoted by Erwin W. Lutzer,
“Exploding the myths that could destroy America” -
[1986], p. 134)

Atheism
is a natural and inseparable part of Marxism.
(Introduction
to Lenin on Religion in the “Little Lenin Library,”
reported by Gray, Alexander, in S”ocialist Tradition: Moses
to Lenin, “ p. 481)

Lenin
— Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of
atheism.” (Lenin,
in his 1905 “Socialism and Religion,” reported by
Francis Nigel Lee in “Communist eschatology: a Christian
philosophical analysis..” p. 573)

Hitleron
Religion:(http://library.flawlesslogic.com/religion.htm)

"So
it's not opportune to hurl ourselves now into a struggle with the
churches. The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural
death. A slow death has something comforting about it."

"Christianity,
of course, has reached the peak of absurdity in this respect. And
that's why one day its structure will collapse. Science has
already impregnated humanity. Consequently, the more Christianity
clings to its dogmas, the quicker it will decline."

"We'll
see to it that the churches cannot spread abroad teachings in
conflict with the interests of the State. We shall continue to
preach the doctrine of National Socialism, and the young will no
longer be taught anything but the truth."

"Indeed,
it's most important that the higher belief should be well
established in them before the lower belief has been removed. We
must finally achieve this."

"We do
not want to educate anyone in atheism."

"The
observatory I'll have built at Linz, on the Pöstlingberg, I
can see it in my mind ... In future, thousands of excursionists
will make a pilgrimage there every Sunday. They'll thus have
access to the greatness of our universe. The pediment will bear
this motto: 'The heavens proclaim the glory of the everlasting.'
It will be our way of giving men a religious spirit, of teaching
them humility — but without the priests."

"The
final state must be: in St. Peter's Chair, a senile officiant;
facing him, a few sinister old women, as gaga and as poor in
spirit as anyone could wish."

"For my
part, in his place [the Duce] I'd have taken the path of
revolution. I'd have entered the Vatican and thrown everybody out
— reserving the right to apologize later: 'Excuse me, it
was a mistake!' But the result would have been, they'd have been
outside!"

"But a
pope, even a criminal one, who protects great artists and spreads
beauty around him, is nevertheless more sympathetic to me than
the protestant minister who drinks from the poisoned spring."

"I have
six Divisions of SS composed of men absolutely indifferent in
matters of religion."

"The
soul and the mind migrate, just as the body returns to nature.
Thus life is eternally reborn from life. As for the 'why' of all
that, I feel no need to rack my brains on the subject. The soul
is unplumbable."

Hitler's
Table Talk

The
following were recorded by his secretary and published in a book
called Hitler's Table Talk (Adolf Hitler, London, Weidenfeld &
Nicholson, 1953). I have lifted the text of these from the
soc.religion.christian newsgroup's Hitler FAQ.

Hitler's
Table Talk is a series of informal, private conversations among
Hitler and his closest associates, as recorded by Martin Bormann.
The ex tempore remarks excerpted above are from July 1941 to June
1942, most late at night or in early morning.

Night of
11th-12th July, 1941:

"National
Socialism and religion cannot exist together....

"The
heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of
Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child.
Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter
of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity....

"Let it
not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul,
for that evolution was in the natural order of things." (p 6
& 7)

10th
October, 1941, midday:

"Christianity
is a rebellion against natural law, a protest against nature.
Taken to its logical extreme, Christianity would mean the
systematic cultivation of the human failure." (p 43)

14th
October, 1941, midday:

"The
best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... When
understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian
doctrine will be convicted of absurdity....

"Christianity
has reached the peak of absurdity.... And that's why someday its
structure will collapse....

"...the
only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little
by little....

"We'll
see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in
conflict with the interests of the State." (p 49-52)

21st
October, 1941, midday:"Originally, Christianity was merely
an incarnation of Bolshevism, the destroyer....

"Didn't
the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same
old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the
name of Christianity. Today, it's in the name of Bolshevism.
Yesterday the instigator was Saul: the instigator today,
Mardochai. Saul was changed into St.Paul, and Mardochai into Karl
Marx. By exterminating this pest, we shall do humanity a service
of which our soldiers can have no idea." (p 63-65)

13th
December, 1941, midnight: "When all is said, we have no
reason to wish that the Italians and Spaniards should free
themselves from the drug of Christianity. Let's be the only
people who are immunised against the disease." (p 118-119)

14th
December, 1941, midday: "Kerrl, with noblest of intentions,
wanted to attempt a synthesis between National Socialism and
Christianity. I don't believe the thing's possible, and I see the
obstacle in Christianity itself...

"Pure
Christianity-- the Christianity of the catacombs-- is concerned
with translating Christian doctrine into facts. It leads quite
simply to the annihilation of mankind." (p 119 & 120)

27th
February, 1942, midday: "It would always be disagreeable for
me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this
field. I realize that man, in his imperfection, can commit
innumerable errors-- but to devote myself deliberately to errors,
that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to
terms with the Christian lie."

"Our
epoch in the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the
disease of Christianity.... My regret will have been that I
couldn't... behold <its demise>." (p 278)

The
philosophic basis of the Nazi campaign has been firmly laid by
Dr. Alfred Rosenberg, arrogant right-hand idea-man to the
Realmleader. In his The Myth of the Twentieth Century he laughs
the Old Testament out of court by describing its most famed
characters as "pimps and cattle-dealers." Jesus he
takes seriously but concludes:

"The
religion of Jesus was undoubtedly the preaching of love . . . but
the German religious movement, which wishes to develop into a
people's church, must declare that it unconditionally
subordinates the ideal of neighborly love to the ideal of
national honor . . . The churches, handed over to it again, will,
little by little, put the fiery spirit of the hero . . . in place
of the crucifixion."

Youth. The
principal agent of the Rosenberg philosophy is the Nazi Youth
organization. Youth spoke thrice last week:

1) "Besides
the rock of Jesus Christ there is another: Adolf Hitler. It
remains to be seen which of the two is stronger. On the one sit
the old women. On the other stands the young generation."
(Youth Leader Hartmann-Lautenbacher).

2) "The
number of those who have decided to turn away from Christianity
entirely is greater than is generally realized. Dr. Alfred
Rosenberg's Twentieth Century is a book that . . . points the
way. . . . The religious faith of the German people must be
decided by political elements, the Storm Troops and the Hitler
Youth." (Youth Leader Hartmann-Lautenbacher).

3) "The
time has come to take up the fight against Christianity. Germans!
Liberate yourselves from the cultures of alien priests! . . .
Abandon the Jewish-Christian conception of sin, pity and loving
the enemy! Be hard! Pity and mercy be damned! Praise that which
steels. Christianity's totality claim is a thing of the past.
Germans shall and must realize their conversion to Christianity
was a crime against the race and the people which put them
completely at the mercy of powers outside the State." (Youth
Leader Hartmann-Lautenbacher).
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,747864,00.html

Hitler’s
aim was to eradicate all religious organizations within the state
and to foster a return to paganism” (Dimont,
1994, p. 397). http://www.trueorigin.org/hitler01.asp

Hitler
claimed that during the time he served in World War I, he had a
religious awakening; specifically when he was in the hospital,
temporarily blinded from an enemy gas attack in October 1918.
This religious awakening may be attributed to a hallucination,
possibly induced by a Dr. Forster.[5] Another alleged incident
was that a mysterious voice told Hitler to leave a crowded trench
during a minor barrage. Moments after he left the area, a shell
fell on that particular spot. Hitler saw this experience as a
message that made him believe that he was a uniquely illuminated
individual who had a special task to fulfill.[6]

Joseph
Goebbels notes in a diary entry in 1939: "The Führer is
deeply religious, but deeply anti-Christian. He regards
Christianity as a symptom of decay." Albert Speer reports a
similar statement: “You see, it’s been our misfortune
to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion
of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the
highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much
more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be
Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?"[18][19]

Among
eastern religions, Hitler described religious leaders such as
"Confucius, Buddha, and Mohammed" as providers of
"spiritual sustenance".[40] In this context, Hitler's
connection to Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem —
which included asylum in 1941, the honorary rank of a SS Major,
and a "respected racial genealogy" — has been
interpreted more as a sign of respect than political
expedience.[41] Hitler's choice of the Swastika as the Nazis'
main and official symbol, was linked to the belief in the Aryan
cultural descent of the German people. They considered the early
Aryans of India to be the prototypical white invaders and the
sign as a symbol of the Aryan master race.[42] —
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_religious_beliefs

Adolf Hitler
was politically astute enough to maintain some public distance
between himself and the Neo-Pagan ideologues of the Nazi Party.
But he was not far from them at heart. After his death
documentation became available showing that Hitler had approved
grandiose plans to wean the German churches away from
Christianity and into the Neo-Pagan fold: "...under the
leadership of Rosenberg, Bormann and Himmler, who were backed by
Hitler, the Nazi regime intended eventually to destroy
Christianity in Germany, if it could, and substitute the old
paganism of the early tribal Germanic gods and the new paganism
of the Nazi extremists. As Bormann, one of the men closest to
Hitler, said publicly in 1941, 'National Socialism and
Christianity are irreconcilable.'

"What
the Hitler government envisioned for Germany was clearly set out
in a thirty-point program for the 'National Reich Church' drawn
up during the war by Rosenberg, an outspoken pagan...

"The
National Reich Church of Germany categorically claims the
exclusive right and the exclusive power to control all churches
within the borders of the Reich: it declares these to be national
churches of the German Reich.

"The
National Church is determined to exterminate irrevocably...the
strange and foreign Christian faiths imported into Germany in the
ill-omened year 800...

"The
National Church has no scribes, pastors, chaplains or priests,
but National Reich orators are to speak in them.

"The
National Church demands immediate cessation of the publishing and
dissemination of the Bible in Germany...'"

"On the
altars there must be nothing but 'Mein Kampf' (to the German
nation and therefore to God the most sacred book) and to the left
of the altar a sword.

"On the
day of its foundation, the Christian Cross must be removed from
all churches, cathedrals and chapels...and it must be superseded
by the only unconquerable symbol, the swastika." (The
Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer, P. 240).

Martin
Bormann was faithful to Hitler till the end, sprinkling gasoline
on the bodies after Hitler's suicide. This true believer put it
this way:

"National
Socialist and Christian concepts are incompatible. The Christian
Churches build upon the ignorance of men and strive to keep large
portions of the people in ignorance because only in this way can
the Christian Churches maintain their power. On the other hand,
National Socialism is based on scientific foundations.
Christianity's immutable principles, which were laid down almost
two thousand years ago, have increasingly stiffened into
life-alien dogmas. National Socialism, however, if it wants to
fulfill its task further, must always guide itself according to
the newest data of scientific researches.

"The
Christian Churches have long been aware that exact scientific
knowledge poses a threat to their existence. Therefore, by means
of such pseudo-sciences as theology, they take great pains to
suppress or falsify scientific research...No one would know
anything about Christianity if pastors had not crammed it down
his throat in his childhood. The so-called loving God by no means
reveals the knowledge of His existence to young people, but
amazingly enough, and despite His omnipotence, He leaves this to
the efforts of a pastor. When in the future our youth no longer
hear anything about this Christianity, whose doctrine is far
below our own, Christianity will automatically disappear.

"[...]
When we National Socialists speak of a belief in God...[we mean]
[t]he force which moves all these bodies in the universe, in
accordance with natural law, is what we call the Almighty or God.
The assertion that this world-force can worry about the fate of
every individual, every bacillus on earth, and that it can be
influenced by so-called prayer or other astonishing things, is
based either on a suitable dose of naivete or on outright
commercial effrontery."

"Any
influence that would impair or damage the leadership of the
people exercised by the Fuhrer with the aid of the NSDAP has to
be eliminated. To an ever increasing degree the people must be
wrested from Churches and their agents, the pastors...Only the
Reich leadership, together with the party and the organs and
associations connected with it, has a right to lead the people.
Just as the harmful influence of astrologists, soothsayers, and
other swindlers has been suppressed by the state, so it must be
absolutely impossible for the Church to exercise its old
influence." (Martin Bormann, Reich Leader,
1942, 'National Socialist and Christian Concepts are
Incompatible', From Kirchliches Jahrbuch fur die evangelische
Kirche in Deutschland, 1933-1944, pp. 470-472, quoted pp.
245-247, George L. Mosse, Nazi Culture: A Documentary History).

Hitler's
contempt for Christians and the Bible was genuine and
well-attested. Of Roman Catholic upbringing, he was, however, a
theist, who seems to have had a vague religious faith,
attributing his escape from Stauffenberg's bomb to "Providence."
(Colonel Stauffenberg had placed a briefcase containing a bomb at
the Fuhrer's feet, then hastily departed. Not owing to any break
in the course of nature, but simply because somebody found the
clumsy briefcase to be in the way, it had been moved before
exploding, and Hitler survived.) He spoke to the nation: "The
bomb planted by Colonel Count Stauffenberg exploded two meters to
the right of me...I myself an entirely unhurt, aside from some
very minor scratches, bruises and burns. I regard this as a
confirmation of the task imposed upon me by Providence..."
(The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer, p.
1069). He considered this "Providence" to favor the
strong over the weak:

"...I
may be no pious churchgoer, but deep within me I am nevertheless
a devout man. That is to say, I believe that he who fights
valiantly obeying the laws which a god has established and who
never capitulates but instead gathers his forces time after time
and always pushes forward---such a man will not be abandoned by
the Lawgiver. Rather, he will ultimately receive the blessing of
Providence." (Adolf Hitler, in his June 26,
1944 speech to industrialists, quoted by Albert Speer, p. 555,
Inside the Third Reich.)

But He was
no Christian, and his movement was no celebration of
Christianity. He thought ill of Christianity, preferring Islam
for its warrior spirit:

"You
see, it's been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why
didn't we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice
for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion
too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity.
Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and
flabbiness?" (Adolf Hitler, quoted by Albert
Speer, p. 96, Inside the Third Reich.)

The
"meekness and flabbiness" to which Hitler objected in
Christianity fell straight from the lips of its Founder:

"The
German people is no longer blinded by illusions as at the time of
the Reformation. It has come to recognize not only Judaism, but
Christianity too, as foreign to its genius. (Der
Blitz, January 12, 1936, quoted p. 6, The War Against God, edited
by Carl Carmer).

"But
today a new faith is awakening: the myth of the blood...Then in
place of the Old Testament stories of cattle breeders and the
exploitation of prostitutes, we shall have the Nordic sagas and
fairy tales, at first simply recounted, later assuming the form
of symbols." (Alfred Rosenberg, Myth of the
Twentieth Century, 1932, quoted p. 6, The War Against God, edited
by Carl Carmer).

"The
teaching of mercy and love of one's neighbor is foreign to the
German race and the Sermon on the Mount is according to Nordic
sentiment an ethic for cowards and idiots. (Hans
Hauptmann, Bolshevism in the Bible; Nazi textbook), 1937, quoted
p. 28, The War Against God, edited by Carl Carmer).

"If
Jehovah has lost all meaning for us Germans, the same must be
said of Jesus Christ, his son...He certainly lacks those
characteristics which he would require to be a true German.
Indeed, he is as disappointing, if we read his record carefully,
as is his father. (E.
K. Heidemann, 'What the Christian Does not Know about
Christianity,' September, 1935, quoted p. 105, The War Against
God, edited by Carl Carmer; http://thriceholy.net/bible.html

I’m
going to become a religious figure. Soon I’ll be the great
chief of the Tartars. Already Arabs and Moroccans are mingling my
name with their prayers.” (Adolf Hitler,
cited in Waite, Robert, Adolf Hitler: The Psychopathic God [NY:
Basic Books, 1977) p. 261; Lutzer, pp. 62-63])

“In
passing, we should note that [Hitler] banned prayer in schools,
changed Christian holidays into pagan festivals, and eventually
forced the church leadership to accept his outrageous demands.
His political machine swallowed the church whole because the
church had lost its biblical mission. Thus the state not only
interfered with religious practices but controlled them.”
(Lutzer, p. 19)

“Hitler
also accepted Charles Darwin’s theory of “the
survival of the fittest” and asserted that man had every
right to be “as cruel as nature.” Detailed lectures
were given in schools and to SS troops to prove the inferiority
of the Jews. Aryan skulls were compared with those of Jewish
ancestry to prove on a scientific basis that the latter were
hopelessly inferior. Only the “fittest” had the right
to survive.” (Lutzer,
p. 80)

“Extensive
research by Kevin E. Abrams has revealed that whereas homosexuals
were put into death camps, they were never targeted for
extermination as a class and were treated far better than most
other concentration camp victims. Two years after Hitler’s
victory [the 1933 election], the term “unnatural” was
purged from the definition of homosexuality in the German
Criminal Code.

“One
is either a Christian or a German. You can’t be both.”
— Adolf Hitler (Lutzer,
113-114)

“The
doctrine of equality! There exists no more poisonous poison: for
it seems to be preached by justice itself, while it is the end of
justice.”

"Equality
is a lie concocted by inferior people who arrange themselves in
herds to overpower those who are naturally superior to them."

The
poisonous doctrine, "equal rights for all," has been
propagated as a Christian principle...

On
the other hand (the Right):

George
Washington(1732—1731.
First President. Presided over the convention that drafted the
Constitution)
— It
is impossible to account for the creation of the universe without
the agency of a Supreme Being. It is impossible to govern the
universe without the aid of a Supreme Being.(James
K. Paulding, A Life of Washington [New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1835], Vol. II, p. 209)

• I
now make it my earnest prayer that God would have you, and the
State over which you preside, in his holy protection...that he
would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice,
to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity,
humility, and pacific temper of mind, which were the
characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and
without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we
can never hope to be a happy nation.(The
Last Official Address of His Excellency George Washington to the
Legislature of the United States (Hartford: Hudson and Goodwin,
1783), p. 12; see also The New Annual Register or General
Repository of History, Politics, and Literature, for the Year
1783 [London: G. Robinson, 1784], p. 150;
http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=8755#)

• While
we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and
soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher
duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it
should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished
character of Christian.(The
Writings of Washington, John C. Fitzpatrick, editor (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1932), Vol. XI, pp. 342-343, General
Orders of May 2, 1778;
http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=8755#FN123)

• ...there
is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists
in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union
between virtue and happiness...we ought to be no less persuaded
that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a
nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right,
which Heaven itself has ordained: and since the preservation of
the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican
model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as
finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the
American people….(John
Witherspoon, The Works of John Witherspoon [Edinburgh: J. Ogle,
1815], Vol. VII, p. 139, from his “Lectures on Moral
Philosophy,” Lecture 16 on Oaths and Vows.

• ...it
would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act,
my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over
the universe, who presides in the councils of nations and whose
providential aids can supply every human defect, that His
benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the
people of the United States a Government.(This
nations first Inaugural Speech, April 30, 1789. The Debates and
Proceedings in the Congress of the United States, Joseph Gales,
editor [Washington: Gales & Seaton, 1834], Vol. I, p. 27. See
also George Washington, Messages and Papers of the Presidents,
James D. Richardson, editor [Washington, D.C.: 1899], Vol. 1, pp.
44-45, April 30, 1789;
http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=19942#R21)

Washington's
Thanksgiving Proclamation,
New
York, 3 October 1789 — By the President of the United
States of America, a Proclamation:

Whereas
it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of
Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits,
and humbly to implore his protection and favor-- and whereas both
Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to
recommend to the People of the United States a day of public
thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with
grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially
by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of
government for their safety and happiness.

Now
therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of
November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the
service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent
Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be-- That
we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and
humble thanks--for his kind care and protection of the People of
this Country previous to their becoming a Nation--for the signal
and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his
Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of
the late war--for the great degree of tranquility, union, and
plenty, which we have since enjoyed--for the peaceable and
rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish
constitutions of government for our safety and happiness.(http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/GW/gw004.html)

Washington's
Farewell Address, 1797
— Of
all the dispositions and habits which lead to political
prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. . .
. And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality
can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to
the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar
structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that
national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious
principle. (Farewell
Address, 1797;
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp)

• I
am sure there never was a people, who had more reason to
acknowledge a divine interposition in their affairs, than those
of the United States; and I should be pained to believe that they
have forgotten that agency, which was so often manifested during
our Revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence
of that God who is alone able to protect them.(From
a letter to John Armstrong;
http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mgw/mgw2/018/1110109.jpg).

Rules
for the Regulation of the Navyof
the United Colonies of North-America, 1775 — ART. 2. The
Commanders of the ships of the Thirteen United Colonies are to
take care that divine service be performed twice a day on board,
and a sermon preached on Sundays, unless bad weather or other
extraordinary accidents prevent it.

ART.
3. If any shall be heard to swear, curse or blaspheme the name of
God, the Captain is strictly enjoined to punish them for every
offence, by causing them to wear a wooden collar or some other
shameful badge of distinction, for so long a time as he shall
judge proper...

ART.
42. All witnesses, before they may be permitted to give evidence,
shall take the following oath, viz. "You swear, the evidence
you shall give in the cause now in hearing, shall be the whole
truth and nothing but the truth; so help you God."(Rules
for the Regulation of the Navy of the United Colonies of
North-America... (Philadelphia: William and Thomas Bradford,
1775; reprinted Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Foundation,
1944; http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq59-5.htm)

Congress,
Sept. 11, 1777 — ....the
use of the Bible is so universal, and its importance so great,
that your committee refer the above to the consideration of
Congress, and if Congress shall not think it expedient to order
the importation of types and paper, your committee recommend that
Congress will order the Committee of Commerce to import 20,000
Bibles from Holland, Scotland, or elsewhere, into the different
ports of the states in the Union.” “Whereupon, the
Congress was moved, to order the Committee of Commerce to import
twenty thousand copies of the Bible.”(Worthington
C. Ford, ed., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789,
vol. 8, (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1907),
733-734) Note:
This plan was passed by a close vote, and was partly in order to
prevent price gouging due to the oppression of the British, and
was never implemented as recommended due to that problem. Yet
rather than a strict separation that forbade such help, as
imagined by strict separationists, the government then did
consider the Bible so important that it was agreeable to
obtaining Bibles for the public.

Congressional
Thanksgiving Day Proclamation,
November
1, 1777
— Forasmuch
as it is the indispensable duty of all men to adore the
superintending providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with
gratitude their obligation to him for benefits received, and to
implore such farther blessings as they stand in need of;... It is
therefore recommended to the legislative or executive powers of
these United States, to set apart Thursday, the 18th day of
December next, for solemn thanksgiving and praise; that with one
heart and one voice the good people may express the grateful
feelings of their hearts, and consecrate themselves to the
service of their divine benefactor; and that together with their
sincere acknowledgments and offerings, they may join the penitent
confession of their manifold sins, whereby they had forfeited
every favor, and their humble and earnest supplication that it
may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to
forgive and blot them out of remembrance;...may render them fit
instruments, under the providence of Almighty God...to take
schools and seminaries of education, so necessary for cultivating
the principles of true liberty, virtue and piety, under his
nurturing hand, and to prosper the means of religion for the
promotion and enlargement of that kingdom which consisteth in
righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.(http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=3847)

CongressionalFast
Day Proclamation,
March 20, 1779 — WHEREAS,
in just Punishment of our manifold Transgressions, it hath
pleased the Supreme Disposer of all Events to visit these United
States with a calamitous War, through which his Divine Providence
hath hitherto in a wonderful Manner conducted us, so that we
might acknowledge that the Race is not to the Swift, nor the
Battle to the Strong: AND WHEREAS, notwithstanding the
Chastisements received and Benefits bestowed, too few have been
sufficiently awakened to a Sense of their Guilt, or warmed with
Gratitude, or taught to amend their Lives and turn from their
Sins, that so he might turn his Wrath: AND WHEREAS, from a
Consciousness of what we have merited at his Hands, and an
Apprehension that the Malevolence of our disappointed Enemies,
like the Incredulity of Pharaoh, may be used as the Scourge of
Omnipotence to vindicate his slighted Majesty, there is Reason to
fear that he may permit much of our Land to become the Prey of
the Spoiler, our Borders to be ravaged, and our Habitations
destroyed:

RESOLVED,

THAT
it be recommended to the several States to appoint the First
Thursday in May next to be a Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and
Prayer to Almighty God, that he will be pleased to avert those
impending Calamities which we have but too well deserved: That he
will grant us his Grace to repent of our Sins, and amend our
Lives according to his Holy Word: That he will continue that
wonderful Protection which hath led us through the Paths of
Danger and Distress:...

Note:
In contrast to the above proclamation and those of others in
recommending national day of fasting and prayer, Jefferson, a
non-Christian and strict separatist (but not as much as many
today) dissented, but only as regards the federal level, stating,
“I
am aware that the practice of my predecessors may be quoted. But
I have ever believed that the example of state executives led to
the assumption of that authority by the general government,
without due examination, which would have discovered that what
might be a right in a state government, was a violation of that
right when assumed by another. Be this as it may, every one must
act according to the dictates of his own reason, & mine tells
me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of
the US. and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his
constituents. (Thomas
Jefferson to Samuel Miller, January 23, 1808;
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mtj:@field%28DOCID+@lit%28tj110010%29%29)

Congressional
Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1782 —
It
being the indispensable duty of all nations, not only to offer up
their supplications to Almighty God, the giver of all good, for
His gracious assistance in a time of distress, but also in a
solemn and public manner, to give Him praise for His goodness in
general, and especially for great and signal interpositions of
His Providence in their behalf; therefore, the Unites States in
Congress assembled, taking into their consideration the many
instances of Divine goodness to these States in the course of the
important conflict, in which they have been so long engaged, -
the present happy and promising state of public affairs, and the
events of the war in the course of the year now drawing to a
close;..Do hereby recommend it to the inhabitants of these States
in general, to observe and request the several states to
interpose their authority, in appointing and commanding the
observation of THURSDAY the TWENTY-EIGHTH DAY OF NOVEMBER next as
a day of SOLEMN THANKSGIVING to GOD for all His mercies; and they
do further recommend to all ranks to testify their gratitude to
God for His goodness by a cheerful obedience to His laws and by
promoting, each in his station, and by his influence, the
practice of true and undefiled religion, which is the great
foundation of public prosperity and national happiness.

• Done
in Congress at Philadelphia, the eleventh day of October, in the
year of our LORD, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-two, and
of our Sovereignty and Independence, the seventh.(http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=17944)

John
Adams(1735—July 4, 1826. Second
President and one of the Founding Fathers. Assisted Thomas
Jefferson in drafting the Declaration of Independence) —
"No
simply form of government can possible secure men against the
violence of power...Democracy will soon degenerate into an
anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in
his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or
liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould
itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues
and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit
and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and
the execrable cruelty of one or a very few."(An
Essay
on Man's Lust for Power, August 29, 1763)

• ...we
have no government armed with power capable of contending with
human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice,
ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords
of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our
Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It
is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. (From
a letter Adams wrote on 11 October 1798 to the officers of the
First Brigade, Third Division, of the Massachusetts Militia).ion
of the Militia of Massachusetts,” October 11, 1798)

• Statesmen,
my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is
Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles
upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a
free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired
into our People in a greater Measure, than they have it now, they
may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they
will not obtain a lasting liberty. They will only exchange
Tyrants and Tyrannies."(Letter
to Zabdiel Adams, June 21, 1776;
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field%28DOCID+@lit%28dg004210%29%29

• It
is the will of Heaven that the two countries should be sundered
forever. It may be the will of Heaven that America shall suffer
calamities still more wasting and distressing yet more dreadful.
If this is to be the case, it will have this good effect, at
least: it will inspire us will many virtues, which we have not,
and correct many errors, follies, and vices, which threaten to
disturb, dishonor, and destroy us. The furnace of affliction
produces refinement, in states as well as individuals. And the
new governments we are assuming, in every part, will require a
purification from our vices and an augmentation of our virtues or
they will be no blessings. The people will have unbounded power.
And the people are extremely addicted to corruption and venality,
as well as the great. I am not without apprehensions from this
quarter, but I must submit all my hopes and fears to an
overruling Providence, in which, unfashionable as the faith may
be, I firmly believe.(Letter
to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776)

• Suppose
a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their
only law book and every member should regulate his conduct by the
precepts there exhibited. . . . What a Eutopia – what a
Paradise would this region be!(Diary
Entry,
February 22, 1756;
http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/john-adams-quotes-1.html)

• It
[July 4th]
ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn
Acts of Devotion to God Almighty...And that Posterity will
tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it,
which I trust in God We shall not.(Letter
to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776)

• Twenty
times, in the course of my late Reading, have I been upon the
point of breaking out, 'This would be the best of all possible
Worlds, if there were no Religion in it'!!! But in this
exclamati[on] I should have been as fanatical as Bryant or
Cleverly [Adams'
boyhood parish priest and Latin school master].Without
Religion this World would be Something not fit to be mentioned in
polite Company, I mean Hell.(Letter
to Thomas Jefferson, April 19, 1817)

• They
(the Puritans) saw clearly that of all the nonsense and delusion
which had ever passed through the mind of man, none had ever been
more extravagant than the notions of absolutions, indelible
characters, uninterrupted successions, and the rest of those
fantastical ideas, derived from the canon law, which had thrown
such a glare of mystery, sanctity, reverence, and right reverend
eminence and holiness around the idea of a priest as no mortal
could deserve, and as always must, from the constitution of human
nature, be dangerous to society. For this reason they demolished
the whole system of diocesan episcopacy, and, deriding, as all
reasonable and impartial men must do, the ridiculous fancies of
sanctified effluvia from Episcopal fingers, they established
sacerdotal ordination on the foundation of the Bible and common
sense. (A
Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765;
http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/john-adams-quotes-1.html)

John
Quincy Adams(1767—1848: Sixth
President of the United States and one of the Founding Fathers.
Proficient in five languages before he was 18) —
In the chain of human events, the birthday of the
nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior.
The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human
government upon the first precepts of Christianity.(John
Quincy Adams, An Oration Delivered Before the Inhabitants of the
Town of Newburyport at Their Request on the Sixty-First
Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1837
(Newburyport: Charles Whipple, 1837), pp. 5-6)

• The
hope of a Christian is inseparable from his faith. Whoever
believes in the Divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures must
hope that the religion of Jesus shall prevail throughout the
earth. Never since the foundation of the world have the prospects
of mankind been more encouraging to that hope than they appear to
be at the present time. And may the associated distribution of
the Bible proceed and prosper till the Lord shall have made “bare
His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of
the earth shall see the salvation of our God” [Isaiah
52:10](Life
of John Quincy Adams, W. H. Seward, editor (Auburn, NY: Derby,
Miller & Company, 1849), p. 248.)

• I
have thrown myself, reeking with sin, on the mercy of God,
through Jesus Christ His blessed Son and our (yes, my friend,
our) precious Redeemer; and I have assurances as strong as that I
now owe nothing to your rank that the debt is paid and now I love
God – and with reason. I once hated him – and with
reason, too, for I knew not Christ. The only cause why I should
love God is His goodness and mercy to me through Christ.(Collected
Letters of John Randolph of Roanoke to Dr. John Brockenbrough,
Kenneth Shorey, editor (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1988),
p. 17, to John Brockenbrough, August 25, 1818)

• I
am at last reconciled to my God and have assurance of His pardon
through faith in Christ, against which the very gates of hell
cannot prevail. Fear hath been driven out by perfect love.(Hugh
A. Garland, The Life of John Randolph of Roanoke (New York: D.
Appleton & Company, 1853), Vol. II, p. 99, to Francis Scott
Key on September 7, 1818).

Samuel
Adams(1722—1803: one of the Founding
Fathers; Ratifier of the u. s. Constitution; Signer of the
Declaration of Independence; “Father of the American
Revolution”) — I conceive we cannot
better express ourselves than by humbly supplicating the Supreme
Ruler of the world . . . that the confusions that are and have
been among the nations may be overruled by the promoting and
speedily bringing in the holy and happy period when the kingdoms
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ may be everywhere
established, and the people willingly bow to the scepter of Him
who is the Prince of Peace.(From
a Fast Day Proclamation issued by Governor Samuel Adams,
Massachusetts, March 20, 1797;
http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=8755#FN12)

• ...may
[we] with one heart and voice humbly implore His gracious and
free pardon through Jesus Christ, supplicating His Divine aid . .
. [and] above all to cause the religion of Jesus Christ, in its
true spirit, to spread far and wide till the whole earth shall be
filled with His glory.
(Proclamation
for a Day of Fasting and Prayer, March 10, 1793)

• ..with
true contrition of heart to confess their sins to God and implore
forgiveness through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our
Savior.
(Proclamation
for a Day of Fasting and Prayer, March 15, 1796)

• A
general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely
overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the
common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be
subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready
to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal
invader.(Samuel
Adams, The Writings of Samuel Adams, Harry Alonzo Cushing, ed.
(New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1905), Vol. IV, p. 124;
http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=126#fn25)

John
Hancock(1737—1793.
Prominent philanthropist, patriot and Signer of the Declaration
of Independence; President of Congress and twice Governor
Massachusetts) — called on the
entire state (MA) to pray,

• that
universal happiness may be established in the world [and] that
all may bow to the scepter of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the
whole earth be filled with His glory. (
A Proclamation For a Day of Public Thanksgiving 1791, given as
Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts;
http://www.davidbarton.biz/2010/04/23/a-spiritual-heritage-tool-of-the-united-states-capitol-by-david-barton0

• ..that
with true contrition of heart we may confess our sins, resolve to
forsake them, and implore the Divine forgiveness, through the
merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, our Savior. . . . And
finally to overrule all the commotions in the world to the
spreading the true religion of our Lord Jesus Christ in its
purity and power among all the people of the earth.(Proclamation
for Day of Public Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer, March 4, 1793)

• Continue
steadfast and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God,
nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to
take from us.(History
of the United States of America, Vol. II, p. 229)

Abraham
Baldwin(1754—1807.
Founding Father, Signer of the Constitution, Patriot, and
prominent legislator) —
“...a
free government...can only be happy when the public principle and
opinions are properly directed. This is an influence beyond the
reach of laws and punishments, can only be, an can only be
claimed by religion and education.” (Charles
Colcock Jones, “Biographical sketches of the delegates from
Georgia to the Continental Congress,” pp. 6,7)

James
Madison(1751—1836. The fourth
President. Instrumental in the drafting of the Constitution, and
one of the stronger advocates of separation) —
"I have sometimes thought there could not be a
stronger testimony in favor of religion or against temporal
enjoyments, even the most rational and manly, than for men who
occupy the most honorable and gainful departments and [who] are
rising in reputation and wealth, publicly to declare their
unsatisfactoriness by becoming fervent advocates in the cause of
Christ; and I wish you may give in your evidence in this way."(Letter to William
Bradford, September 25, 1773)

• ...the simple question to be
decided, is whether a support of the best & purest religion,
the Christian religion itself ought not, so far at least as
pecuniary means are involved, to be provided for by the
Government, rather than be left to the voluntary provisions of
those who profess it. (Religion
and Politics in the Early Republic: Jasper Adams and the
Church-State Debate, Daniel L. Dreisbach, ed. (Kentucky:
University Press of Kentucky, 1996), p. 117)

• While
we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess, and to
observe, the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we
cannot deny an equal freedom to them whose minds have not yielded
to the evidence which has convinced us.(James
Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance [Massachusetts: Isaiah
Thomas, 1786];
http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=126#fn14)

• Religious
bondage [in
regards to a state church and required assent, contrary to
freedom of religion]shackles
and debilitates the mind, and unfits it for every noble
enterprise, every expanded prospect. How far this is the case
with Virginia will more clearly appear when the ensuing trial is
made.(Letter
to William Bradford, April 1, 1774)

• No
power over the freedom of religion [is] delegated to the United
States by the Constitution.

Home-schooled
as a child, Madison attended Princeton University under the
direction of Reverend John Witherspoon, one of the nation's
premier theologians and legal scholars. The University's first
president, Jonathan Dickinson, had declared: “Cursed be all
that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ.(William
J. Federer wrote in the Madison section of his America's God and
Country Encyclopedia of Quotations, p. 410)]

Elias
Boudinot (1740—1821. President
of Congress 1782 to 1783) — Let us
enter on this important business under the idea that we are
Christians on whom the eyes of the world are now turned…
[L]et us earnestly call and beseech Him, for Christ’s sake,
to preside in our councils. . . . We can only depend on the all
powerful influence of the Spirit of God, Whose Divine aid and
assistance it becomes us as a Christian people most devoutly to
implore. Therefore I move that some minister of the Gospel be
requested to attend this Congress every morning . . . in order to
open the meeting with prayer.

Patrick
Henry(1736—1799.
Attorney, twice Governor of Virginia and a Founding Father who is
regarded as one of the most influential champions of
Republicanism, and an invested promoter of the American
Revolution)
— Righteousness
alone can exalt them [America] as a nation. Whoever thou art,
remember this; and in thy sphere practice virtue thyself, and
encourage it in others.
(William
Wirt, “Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry,
“Vol. 2 p. 632)

• The
Bible… is a book worth more than all the other books that
were ever printed.(^ibid,
p. 519)

• Being
a Christian… is a character which I prize far above all
this world has or can boast. (A.
G. Arnold, The Life of Patrick Henry of Virginia;
http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=8755)

Justice
Joseph Story(1779—1845.
Supreme Court Justice from 1811 to 1845 and whose Commentaries on
the Constitution is one of the chief cornerstones of early
American jurisprudence), — One
of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that
Christianity is a part of the Common Law. There never has been a
period in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as
lying at its foundations.(Joseph
Story, Life and Letters of Joseph Story, William W. Story,
editor, Vol. II, p. 8, 1851)

• Probably,
at the time of the adoption of the constitution and of the
amendment to it, now under consideration, the general, if not the
universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to
receive encouragement from the state, so far as was not
incompatible with the private rights of conscience, and the
freedom of religious worship. An attempt to level all religions,
and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter
indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not
universal indignation.

It
yet remains a problem to be solved in human affairs, whether any
free government can be permanent, where the public worship of
God, and the support of religion, constitute no part of the
policy or duty of the state in any assignable shape... But the
duty of supporting religion, and especially the Christian
religion, is very different from the right to force the
consciences of other men, or to punish them for worshipping God
in the manner, which, they believe, their accountability to him
requires. The rights of conscience are, indeed, beyond the just
reach of any human power. They are given by God, and cannot be
encroached upon by human authority...

The
real object of the amendment was, not to countenance, much less
to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by
prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among
Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical
establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive
patronage of the national government. It thus cut off the means
of religious persecution, (the vice and pest of former ages,) and
of the subversion of the rights of conscience in matters of
religion, which had been trampled upon almost from the days of
the Apostles to the present age.
(Joseph
Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. Cp.
XLIV (1833; http://www.constitution.org/js/js_344.htm) More
in commentary below.

John
Jay(1745—1829.
Founding Father, Patriot, author of the Federalist Papers, first
Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, of statesman, Governor
of New York)
— Providence
has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the
duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian
nation, to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.(William
Jay, The Life of John Jay (New York: J. & J. Harper, 1833),
Vol. II, p. 376,
to John Murray Jr. on October 12, 1816)

• By
conveying the Bible to people thus circumstanced we [believers]
certainly do them a most interesting act of kindness. We thereby
enable them to learn, that man was originally created and placed
in a state of happiness, but, becoming disobedient, was subjected
to the degradation and evils which he and his posterity have
since experienced. The Bible will also inform them, that our
gracious Creator has provided for us a Redeemer, in whom all the
nations of the earth should be blessed—that this Redeemer
has made atonement “for the sins of the whole world,”
and thereby reconciling the Divine justice with the Divine mercy,
has opened a way for our redemption and salvation; and that these
inestimable benefits are of the free gift and grace of God, not
of our deserving, nor in our power to deserve.(John
Jay, The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, 1794-1826,
Henry P. Johnston, editor (New York: Burt Franklin, 1890), Vol.
IV, pp.
494, 498, from his “Address at the Annual Meeting of
the American Bible Society,” May 13, 1824)

I
have received your letter of the 22d inst., informing me that the
corporation of the city of New York had resolved to celebrate,
with public demonstrations of respect and joy, the ensuing
anniversary of American Independence, and inviting me,..I cannot
forbear to embrace the opportunity afforded by the present
occasion, to express my earnest hope that the peace, happiness,
and prosperity enjoyed by our beloved country, may induce those
who direct her national councils to recommend a general and
public return of praise and thanksgiving to Him from whose
goodness these blessings descend. (William
Jay, The Life of John Jay (New York: J. & J. Harper, 1833),
Vol. I, pp. 457-458,
to the Committee of the Corporation of the City of New York on
June 29, 1826)

Benjamin
Rush(1746—1813.
Founding Father; signer of the Declaration of Independence;
Surgeon General of the Continental Army; ratifier of the U. S.
Constitution; “Father of American Medicine”;
treasurer of the U. S. Mint; “Father of Public Schools
under the Constitution”)
— By
renouncing the Bible, philosophers swing from their moorings upon
all moral subjects. It is the only correct map of the human heart
that ever has been published. All systems of religion, morals,
and government not founded upon it [the Bible] must perish, and
how consoling the thought, it will not only survive the wreck of
these systems but the world itself. “The Gates of Hell
shall not prevail against it.” (Benjamin
Rush, Letters of Benjamin Rush, L. H. Butterfield, editor
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951), Vol. II, p.
936,
to John Adams, January 23, 1807)

• I
do not believe that the Constitution was the offspring of
inspiration, but I am as satisfied that it is as much the work of
a Divine Providence as any of the miracles recorded in the Old
and New Testament. (^ibid
Vol. I, p. 475, to Elias Boudinot on July 9, 1788)

• The
great enemy of the salvation of man, in my opinion, never
invented a more effective means of limiting Christianity from the
world than by persuading mankind that it was improper to read the
Bible at schools. ^ibid
Vol. I, p. 521, to Jeremy Belknap on July 13, 1789

• We
profess to be republicans, yet we neglect the only means of
establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government,
that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles
of Christianity by means of the Bible; for this divine book,
above all others,favors that equality among all mankind, that
respect for just laws, and all those sober and frugal virtues,
which constitute the soul of republicanism.(Benjamin
Rush, Essays, Literary, Moral & Philosophical (Philadelphia:
Thomas & Samuel F. Bradford, 1798), p. 112,113,
“A Defence of the Use of the Bible as a School Book;
addressed to the Rev. Jeremy Belknap of Boston )

• The
Bible, when not read in schools, is seldom read in any subsequent
period of life. [T]he Bible… should be read in our schools
in preference to all other books because it contains the greatest
portion of that kind of knowledge which is calculated to produce
private and public happiness.(^ibid
pp. pp. 94, 100)

Abraham
Lincoln(1809—1865.
16th President from 1861 to 1865; led his country through its
greatest constitutional, military and moral crisis – the
American Civil War – preserving the Union while ending
slavery, and promoting economic and financial modernization)
— It
is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own their
dependence upon the overruling power of God and to recognize the
sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all
history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the
Lord...

But
we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious Hand which
preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and
strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness
of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced be some
superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken
success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity
of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God
that made us!

It
behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power,
to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and
forgiveness.

Now,
therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring
in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation,
designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th day of April, 1863, as
a day of national humiliation, fasting, and prayer. And I do
hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their
ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places
of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day
holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the
religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All
this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly
in the hope, authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united
cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with
blessings, no less the pardon of our national sins, and the
restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its
former happy condition of unity and peace. (Proclamation
for National Day of Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer;
http://www.peacebyjesus.net/ProclamationNationalFastDay.html)

• Intelligence,
patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has
never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to
adjust in the best way all our present difficulties. (A
Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents,
1789-1897, James D. Richardson, editor [Published by Authority of
Congress, 1899), Vol. VI, p. 11, from his First Inaugural, March
4, 1861])

• That
every man may receive at least a moderate education, and thereby
be enabled to read the histories of his own and other countries,
by which he may duly appreciate the value of our free
institutions, appears to be an object of vital importance, even
on this account alone, to say nothing of the advantages and
satisfaction to be derived from all being able to read the
Scriptures, and other works both of a religious and moral nature
for themselves. (The
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Roy P. Basler, editor [New
Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1953], Vol. I, p. 8, from his
"Communication to the People of Sangamo County," March
9, 1832)

• [Attributed]
As a ruler I doubt if any president has ever shown such trust in
God, or in public documents so frequently referred to Divine aid.
Often did he remark to friends and to delegations that his hope
for our success rested in his conviction that God would bless our
efforts, because we were trying to do right. To the address of a
large religious body he replied, "Thanks be unto God, who,
in our national trials, giveth us the Churches." To a
minister who said he hoped the Lord was on our side, he replied
that it gave him no concern whether the Lord was on our side or
not "For," he added, "I know the Lord is always on
the side of right;" and with deep feeling added, "But
God is my witness that it is my constant anxiety and prayer that
both myself and this nation should be on the Lord's side."(Rev.
Matthew Simpson, D.D, May 4, 1865, Funeral address, Methodist
Episcopal Church, Springfield, Illinois;
http://beck.library.emory.edu/lincoln/sermon.php?id=simpson.001)

Alexis
de Tocqueville (1805—1859.
French political thinker and historian; best known for his two
volume, “Democracy in America”)— The
sects that exist in the United States are innumerable. They all
differ in respect to the worship which is due to the Creator; but
they all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to
man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner, but
all sects preach the same moral law in the name of
God...Moreover, all the sects of the United States are comprised
within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is
everywhere the same...

In
the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and
consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in
the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater
influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be
no greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human
nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the
most enlightened and free nation of the earth...

There
is certainly no country in the world where the tie of marriage is
more respected than in America or where conjugal happiness is
more highly or worthily appreciated, In Europe almost all the
disturbances of society arise from the irregularities of domestic
life. To despise the natural bonds and legitimate pleasures of
home is to contract a taste for excesses, a restlessness of
heart, and fluctuating desires. Agitated by the tumultuous
passions that frequently disturb his dwelling, the European is
galled by the obedience which the legislative powers of the state
exact. But when the American retires from the turmoil of public
life to the bosom of his family, he finds in it the image of
order and of peace...

The
Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so
intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them
conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction
does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems
to vegetate in the soul rather than to live...

Thus
religious zeal is perpetually warmed in the United States by the
fires of patriotism. These men do not act exclusively from a
consideration of a future life; eternity is only one motive of
their devotion to the cause. If you converse with these
missionaries of Christian civilization, you will be surprised to
hear them speak so often of the goods of this world, and to meet
a politician where you expected to find a priest.

They
will tell you that "all the American republics are
collectively involved with each other; if the republics of the
West were to fall into anarchy, or to be mastered by a despot,
the republican institutions which now flourish upon the shores of
the Atlantic Ocean would be in great peril. It is therefore our
interest that the new states should be religious, in order that
they may permit us to remain free." (Democracy
in America, Volume I Chapter XVII, 1835;
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/religion/ch1_17.htm)

• There
are certain populations in Europe whose unbelief is only equaled
by their ignorance and their debasement, while in America one of
the freest and most enlightened nations in the world fulfills all
the outward duties of religion with fervor.

Upon
my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the
country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the
longer I stayed there, the more did I perceive the great
political consequences resulting from this state of things, to
which I was unaccustomed. In France I had almost always seen the
spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing courses
diametrically opposed to each other; but in America I found that
they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over
the same country. (Democracy
in America, [New York: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1851), pp. 331,
332, 335, 336-7, 337;
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/religion/ch1_17.htm)

A
quote often attributed to Tocqueville but which is not documented
by any early sources, states,

• Not
until I went into the churches of American and heard her pulpits
flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her
genius and power. America is great because America is good, and
if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be
great.”

Benjamin
Franklin(1706—1790.
One of the Founding Fathers; leading thinker; author; printer;
statesman; postmaster; diplomat, and a non-Christian deist)
— ...serious religion, under its
various denominations, is not only tolerated, but respected and
practiced. Atheism is unknown there; Infidelity rare and secret;
so that persons may live to a great age in that country without
having their piety shocked by meeting with either an Atheist or
an Infidel. And the Divine Being seems to have manifested His
approbation of the mutual forbearance and kindness by which the
different sects treat each other, and by the remarkable
prosperity with which He has been please to favor the whole
country.(Benjamin Franklin, "Information
to those who would Remove to America" In Franklin, Benjamin.
The Bagatelles from Passy. Ed. Lopez, Claude A. New York: Eakins
Press. 1967;
http://mith.umd.edu//eada/html/display.php?docs=franklin_bagatelle4.xml.
Also, John Gould Curtis, American history told by contemporaries
.... Volume 3, p. 26)

Daniel
Webster(1782—1852. Leading
constitutional scholar/lawyer and statesman, senator from
Massachusetts, Secretary of State under three presidents)
— If there is anything in my thoughts or style
to commend, the credit is due to my parents for instilling in me
an early love of the Scriptures.(Reported
in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of
Brilliant Writers [1895], p. 33;
http://archive.org/stream/dictionaryburni00gilbgoog/dictionaryburni00gilbgoog_djvu.txt)

• And
let me say, gentlemen, that if we and our posterity shall be true
to the Christian religion, if we and they shall live always in
the fear of God, and shall respect His commandments, if we and
they shall maintain just moral sentiments and such conscientious
convictions of duty as shall control the heart and life, we may
have the highest hopes of the future fortunes of our country; and
if we maintain those institutions of government and that
political union, exceeding all praise as much as it exceeds all
former examples of political associations,...It will go on
prospering and to prosper.

But
if we and our posterity reject religious institutions and
authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifile with the
injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political
constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden
a catastrophe may overwhelm us that shall bury all our glory in
profound obscurity. Should that catastrophe happen, let it have
no history! (“The
Dignity and Importance of History,” address to the
Historical Society of New York, February 23, 1852. Source:
Shewmaker, 130-137
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dwebster/speeches/dignity-history.html

The
following quote is very similar to the above, and apparently
first appeared in the Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bible
Society (1870), p. 27, and perhaps was a condensed paraphrase of
the above, expressing its thought:

• If
we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will
go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity
neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how
sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in
profound obscurity.

The
next quote perhaps lacks early attribution, as the earliest
source I have found is from a compilation of quotes first
published in 1908, and without details of when and where it was
said (such details I suspect were not a priority in that era):

• If
religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in
this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a
nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be;

If
God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his
works will gain the ascendancy; If the evangelical volume does
not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious
literature will;

If
the power of the Gospel is not felt throughout the length and
breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery,
corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end."
(Tryon
Edwards, “A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of
Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both
Ancient and Modern ,“1908. p. 49)

• Lastly,
our ancestors established their system of government on morality
and religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot
safely be trusted on any other foundation than religious
principle, nor any government be secure which is not supported by
moral habits.... Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them
good citizens.” (Daniel
Webster, “The life, eulogy, and great orations of Daniel
Webster,” 1854, p.
49)

• Finally,
let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our
fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the
Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in
its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the
elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through
all their institutions, civil, political, or literary. Let us
cherish these sentiments, and extend this influence still more
widely; in full conviction that that is the happiest society
which partakes in the highest degree of the mild and peaceful
spirit of Christianity. (Daniel
Webster, “The life, eulogy, and great orations of Daniel
Webster,” p. 51)

June
17, 1843, at the Bunker Hill Monument in Charleston,
Massachusetts, Webster declared,

• The
Bible came with them. And it is not to be doubted, that to free
and universal reading of the Bible, in that age, men were much
indebted for right views of civil liberty.

The
Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of
morals, and a book of religion, of special revelation from God;
but it is also a book which teaches man his own individual
responsibility, his own dignity, and his equality with his
fellow-man. (Address
at the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument ,” June 17,
1843, The Bunker Hill Monument orations: The Bunker Hill
Monument. [1825...] p. 47;
in “A discourse,

Noah
Webster(1758—1843).
He is called the "Father of American Scholarship and
Education," and was author of several books that were widely
used in schools in his day. Note
that in 1808 Webster underwent a profound conversion to Christ
that is reflected in his statements, which contrast some earlier
ones.—

• As
soon as the Reformation from popery began to dawn in the
sixteenth century, and civil liberty has been advancing and
improving as genuine Christianity has prevailed...

• [T]he
religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of
Christ and His apostles, which enjoins humility, piety and
benevolence…This is genuine Christianity and to this we
owe our free constitutions of government.(Noah
Webster, History of the United States [New Haven: Durrie and
Peck, 1832], p. 300)

The
moral principles and precepts found in the Scriptures ought to
form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws... All the
misery and evils which men suffer vice...proceed from their
neglecting or despising the precepts contained in the Bible.

As
the means of temporal happiness, the Christian religion ought to
be received, and maintained with cordial support. It is the real
source of genuine republican principles...

The
religion of Christ and His apostles, in its simplicity and
purity, unencumbered by the trappings of power and the pomp of
ceremonies, is the surest basis of a republican government.
(^ibid, p. 339)

• [O]ur
citizens should early understand that the genuine source of
correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New
Testament, or the Christian religion. (^
ibid, p. 6)

• In
my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of
the first things in which all children, under a free government
ought to be instructed…No truth is more evident to my mind
than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any
government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free
people.(Preface
to the 1828 edition of Webster's American Dictionary of the
English)

• The
Bible is the chief moral cause of all that is good and the best
corrector of all that is evil in human society – the best
book for regulating the temporal concerns of men, and the only
book that can serve as an infallible guide to future felicity.
(Noah
Webster, The Holy Bible . . . With Amendments of the Language
(New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1833), p.
5.)

• [T]he
Christian religion… is the basis, or rather the source, of
all genuine freedom in government… I am persuaded that no
civil government of a republican form can exist and be durable in
which the principles of Christianity have not a controlling
influence. (K.
Alan Snyder, Defining Noah Webster: Mind and Morals in the Early
Republic (New York: University Press of America, 1990), p. 253,
to James Madison on October 16, 1829)

Illinois
Supreme Court(1883)
— Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based
upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is
impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to
this extent our civilization and our institutions are
emphatically Christian.(Richmond
v. Moore, 107 Ill. 429, 1883 WL 10319 [Ill.], 47 Am.Rep. 445
[Ill. 1883;
http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=126#10]

Northwest
Ordinance (1787; a act of the Congress considered one
of the four foundational or organic laws in America) presented
the requirements for statehood. The ordinance declared,
“Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to
government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of
education shall forever be encouraged.”
(http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/vc006502.jpg)

Horace
Mann(1796—1859.
Politician and “the father of American public education”)
—

• ...it
may not be easy theoretically, to draw the line between those
views of religious truth and of Christian faith which is common
to all, and may, therefore, with propriety be inculcated in
schools, and those which, being peculiar to individual sects, are
therefore by law excluded; still it is believed that no practical
difficulty occurs in the conduct of our schools in this regard.(Stephen
V. Monsma, J. Christopher Soper, “The Challenge of
Pluralism: Church and State in Five Democracies,” The
Unites States, cp. 2, p. 21)

• ..our
system earnestly inculcates all Christian morals; it founds its
morals on the basis of religion; it welcomes the religion of the
Bible; and, in receiving the Bible, it allows it to do what it is
allowed to do in no other system,— to speak for itself. But
here it stops, not because it claims to have compassed all truth;
but because it disclaims to act as an umpire between hostile
religious opinions.
(Horace
Mann in Reports on “Religious Education,” recorded by
Joseph Cook, Hazlitt Alva Cuppy, in “Our day: a record and
review of current reform” [1889], Vol. 3, p. 376)

Mann also stated
that this position resulted in a near universal use of the Bible
in the schools of Massachusetts, and that this served as an
argument against the assertion by some that Christianity was
excluded from his schools, or that they were anti or unchristian.
(Mann,
Twelfth Annual Report for 1848 of the Secretary of the Board of
Education of Massachusetts, pp. 116,177,121,122)

(Mann,
although being Unitarian — a sect which denied the Biblical
Christ and other doctrines that make them uncomfortable, but yet
sought to uphold Christian morality, before it became the overtly
liberal organization it is today — supported prohibition of
alcohol and intemperance, slavery and lotteries, and dreaded
“intellectual eminence when separated from virtue”,
that education, if taught without moral responsibilities, would
produce more evil than it inherited.See
also http://www.conservapedia.com/Moral_decline)

Theodore
Roosevelt(1858—1919. Two-term
26th President [1901–1909]; leader of the Republican
Party; explorer, hunter, author, and soldier, etc.) — No
other book of any kind ever written in English—perhaps no
other book ever written in any other tongue—ever so
affected the whole life of a people as this authorized version
of the Scriptures has affected the life of the English-speaking
peoples.

I
enter a most earnest plea that in our hurried and rather
bustling life of today we do not lose the hold that our
forefathers had on the Bible.

I
wish to see the Bible study as much as matter of course in the
secular college as in the seminary.
(The
Bible and the Life of the People , New outlook, Volume 98,
edited by Alfred Emanuel Smith, Francis Walton, 1911, p. 220)

• I
ask you to train children in the Bible.(ibid
p. 222)

I
hope that after what I have said no man can suspect me of
failure rightly to estimate the enormous influence that study of
the Bible can have on our lives: but I would rather not see a
man study it at all than to read it...and disregard its
teachings...(ibid
p. 223)

• A
thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college
education.(Quoted
in “The judge,” Volume 94, Issue 2412, 1928, p. 23)

To
educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace
to society.(Proceedings,
American Society for Engineering Education, Vol. 32, 1925, p.
222)

• There
is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the
deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of
moral responsibility.(In
Abilene Kansas, May 2, 1903 quoted by Paul H. Jeffers, The Bully
Pulpit: A Teddy Roosevelt Book of Quotations, p. 92)

• A
man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car;
but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole
railroad.”(Ashton
Applewhite, Tripp Evans, “And I Quote: The Definitive
Collection of Quotes, Sayings, and Jokes...” 1992, p. 332)

• Theodore
Roosevelt was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church. He
participated in missions work around New York City with his
father. TR taught weekly Sunday school classes during his four
years at Harvard. Throughout his life he wrote for Christian
publications, During the White House years, Edith, a strong
Episcopalian, invariably attended her denomination's church
across Lafayette Park, the "Church of Presidents." The
president himself usually walked a little farther to worship at
a humble German Reformed church, the closest he could find to
the faith of his fathers.

Roosevelt
called his 1912 bare-the-soul campaign speech announcing his
political principles "A Confession of Faith." Later he
closed perhaps the most important speech of his life, the
clarion-call acceptance of the Progressive Party nomination,
with the words:"We
stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord!" That
convention featured evangelical songs and closed with the hymn,
"Onward Christian Soldiers." He titled one his books
"Foes of our Own Household" (after Matthew 10:36) and
another "Fear God and Take your Own Part. He once wrote an
article for The Ladies Home Journal, "Nine Reasons Why Men
Should Go To Church."

After
TR left the White House, he was offered university presidencies
and many other prominent jobs. He chose instead to become
Contributing Editor of "The Outlook," a small
Christian weekly news magazine, at a salary approximately
one-eighth of salaries offered by magazines like Colliers that
hoped to snag TR's services.

His
first essay for the magazine, telling the public why he chose to
associate himself with the journal, was quoted by The New York
Times, citing The Outlook's "paying heed to the dictates of
a stern morality," and its "inflexible adherence to
the elementary virtues of entire truth, entire courage, entire
honesty." And, he added, it had no taint of Yellow
Journalism.(Bully!:
The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. p. 216)

In
this actual world, a churchless community, a community where men
have abandoned and scoffed at or ignored their religious needs,
is a community on the rapid down grade.”

He
will listen to and take part in reading some beautiful passages
from the Bible. And if he is not familiar with the Bible he has
suffered a loss.

He
may not hear a good sermon at church. He will hear a sermon by a
good man who, with his wife, is engaged all of the week in
making hard lives a little easier.(Augustana
Journal Vol. 28, 1920 p. 453)

• My
fellow-citizens, no people on earth have more cause to be
thankful than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of
boastfulness in our own strength, but with gratitude to the
Giver of Good who has blessed us with the conditions which have
enabled us to achieve so large a measure of well-being and of
happiness...Much has been given us, and much will rightfully be
expected from us.(Theodore
Roosevelt's Inaugural Address, March 4, 1905
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres42.html)

• Progress
has brought us both unbounded opportunities and unbridled
difficulties. Thus, the measure of our civilization will not be
that we have done much, but what we have done with that much. I
believe that the next half century will determine if we will
advance the cause of Christian civilization or revert to the
horrors of brutal paganism. The thought of modern industry in
the hands of Christian charity is a dream worth dreaming. The
thought of industry in the hands of paganism is a nightmare
beyond imagining. The choice between the two is upon us."(William
Joseph Federer, “America's God and Country: Encyclopedia
of Quotations,” p. 540,
citing Noah Brooks, “Men Of Achievement,” 1904, p.
317)

• After
a week on perplexing problems … it does so rest my soul
to come into the house of The Lord and to sing and mean it,
‘Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty’ … (my)
great joy and glory that in occupying an exalted position in the
nation, I am enabled, to preach the practical moralities of the
Bible to my fellow-countrymen and to hold up Christ as the hope
and Savior of the world.(Christian
Fichthorne Reisner, “Roosevelt's religion,” [1922],
p. 334; Ferdinand C. Iglehart, Theodore Roosevelt – The
Man As I knew Him, A.L. Burt, 1919)

Roosevelt
was criticized for attempting to remove “In God we trust”
being on coins, but he explained to clergymen that this was
because he felt this would foster irreverence which was likely
to lead to sacrilege.(^ibid
.“Roosevelt's religion,” p. 248)

• I
advocate a man's joining in church work for the sake of showing
his faith by his works.(Augustana
Journal Vol. 28, 1920 p. 453)

General
Douglas MacArthur(1880—1964.
Famous American general)
— History
fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to
moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline.
There has been either a spiritual re- awakening to overcome the
moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate
national disaster. (Revitalizing
a nation: a statement of beliefs, opinions, and policies embodied
in the public pronouncements of Douglas MacArthur,” p. 14)

• Talk
of imminent threat to our national security through the
application of external force is pure nonsense. Our threat is
from the insidious forces working from within which have already
so drastically altered the character of our free institutions —
those institutions we proudly called the American way of life.
(To
the Michigan legislature, in Lansing, Michigan [15 May 1952]
quoted in “US news and world report - Volume 31 [1951], p.
55)

• The
United States is a preeminently Christian and conservative
nation. (To
Verernal of the Rainmbow (42nd)))
of WW1 Wash. D.C., July 14, quoted by Ed Imparato, “General
MacArthur: Wisdom and Visions,” p. 110)

• Are
we going to continue to permit the pressure of alien doctrines
to strongly influence the orientation of foreign and domestic
policy, or regain trust in our own traditions, experience and
free institutions, and the wisdom of our own people?

Are
we going to preserve the religious base to our origin, our
growth and our progress, or yield to the devious assaults of
atheistic or other anti-religious forces?

In
short, is American life of the future to be characterized by
freedom or by servitude, strength or weakness? The answer must
be clear and unequivocal if we are to avoid the pitfalls toward
which we are heading with such certainly. In many respects it is
not to be found in any dogma of political philosophy, but in
those immutable precepts which underlie the Ten Commandments.
(In
Cleveland Ohio, Sept. 6, 1951; quoted by Ed Imparato, “General
MacArthur: Wisdom and Visions,” p. 130;
United States Congressional serial set Issue 12622
pp. 38,39; Douglas MacArthur, Vorin E. Whan, “A soldier
speaks: public papers and speeches of General of the Army ...”
p. 282)

• The
spiritual impulse is strong in many American hearts and
constitutes a rugged bulwark in the defense of religious
morality against the advance of any atheistic immorality.
(Douglas
MacArthur, Vorin E. Whan, “A soldier speaks: public papers
and speeches of General of the Army ...” p . 286

• Our
great strength rests in those high-minded Americans whose faith
in God and love of country transcends all selfishness and
self-serving instincts. ibid.
p 287)

• The
people have it in their hands to restore morality, wisdom and
direction to of our foreign and domestic affairs, and regain the
religious base which in times past assured general integrity in
public and private life. (On
Flag Day, Houston Tx. June 14, 1951, quoted in “Revitalizing
a nation: a statement of beliefs, opinions, and policies embodied
in the public pronouncements of Douglas MacArthur,” p. 20)

• It is
an infallible reminder that our greatest hope and faith rests
upon two mighty symbols the Cross and the Flag; the one based
upon those immutable teachings which provide the spiritual
strength to persevere along the course which is just and right
the other based upon the invincible will that human freedom
shall not perish from the earth. (ibid.
p. 91)

• There
can be no compromise with atheistic Communism - no half-way in
the preservation of freedom and religion.(Douglas
MacArthur, Ed Imparato, “General MacArthur: Wisdom and
Visions,” p. 128)

• We
all dream of of the day when human conduct will be governed by
the Decalogue and the Sermon and the Mount.(National
republic – Vol. 40-41 – 1952, p. 14)

• Dwight
D Eisenhower —
The
purpose of a devout and united people was set forth in the pages
of The Bible … (1) to live in freedom, (2) to work in a
prosperous land… and (3) to obey the commandments of God…
This Biblical story of the promised land inspired the founders of
America. It continues to inspire us.(“A
Letter from the White House honoring the Bible,” American
Bible Society, 1960, p. 155)

•
Ronald
Reagan(1911—2004.
33rd Governor of California— If
we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be
a Nation gone under...

Without
God, there is no virtue, because there's no prompting of the
conscience. Without God, we're mired in the material, that flat
world that tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God,
there is a coarsening of the society and without God, democracy
will not and cannot long endure.(Memorial
Services in the Congress of the United States and Tributes.., p.
114)

Commentary:
Many strict separationists imagine that the 1stAmendment forbids any
type of official sanction of religion by Federal or State
government, and that it is even antagonistic against religion, at
least that of historical Christian faith, yet the overwhelming
evidence testifies that this is not what the Founders meant, or
was originally understood to mean. For while they did reject a
formal Federal establishment of one religion or sanction of one
church (as in England, and a close alliance in which the State
ran the Church of the Church ran the State), yet as moral laws
and customs of the State reflect the foundational commonly-held
ideology of the Founders, and which, especially in America,
reflected the general religious faith of “we the people,”
thus the State implicitly sanctioned that general faith in
official statements and moral laws and customs.

The
interpretation that “the First Amendment has erected a wall
between Church and State which must be kept high and impregnable”
in prohibiting any official general affirmations of faith is not
what is best warranted in the light of history. While not
requiring assent of faith to one organized State religion, the
government officially sanctioned in a general way the faith of
the people. Such sanction has been as American as apple pie. God
is acknowledged in every single state constitution, the Bible has
historically been used in make pledges, and every president has
said "So help me God" in taking the oath of office, and
has mentioned God in his inaugural address. 52 of
the 55 signers of the Constitution were members of churches (and
even the Deists among them overall reverenced the Bible) and none
of the Founders were atheists (if anything they were antagonistic
against atheism), and upheld Christian morality, sanctioned
prayer and invoked the authority do the Bible in government, and
favored it's influence over the people. In
addition are the many laws (including against polygamy) and
customs which find their principal support in Christian religion,
often having a basis in English ecclesiastical law and Christian
philosophy.

Justice Joseph Story,
Supreme Court Justice from 1811 to 1845 stated (emphasis mine),
“One
of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that
Christianity is a part of the Common Law. There
never has been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize
Christianity as lying at its foundations.”
(Joseph
Story, Life and Letters of Joseph Story, William W. Story,
editor, Vol. II, p. 8, 1851)

His
“Commentaries on the Constitution” is one of the
chief cornerstones of early American jurisprudence, and he stated
in that work,

§
1865. Indeed, the right of a society or government to interfere
[be involved] in matters of religion will hardly be contested by
any persons, who believe that piety, religion, and morality are
intimately connected with the well being of the state, and
indispensable to the administration of civil justice. The
promulgation of the great doctrines of religion, the being, and
attributes, and providence of one Almighty God; the
responsibility to him for all our actions, founded upon moral
freedom and accountability; a future state of rewards and
punishments; the cultivation of all the personal, social, and
benevolent virtues;--these never can be a matter of indifference
in any well ordered community. It is, indeed, difficult to
conceive, how any civilized society can well exist without
them... This is a point wholly distinct from that of the right of
private judgment in matters of religion, and of the freedom of
public worship according to the dictates of one's conscience.

§
1866. The real difficulty lies in ascertaining the limits, to
which government may rightfully go in fostering and encouraging
religion...

§
1867. Now, there will probably be found few persons in this, or
any other Christian country, who would deliberately contend, that
it was unreasonable, or unjust to foster and encourage the
Christian religion generally, as a matter of sound policy, as
well as of revealed truth. In fact, every American colony, from
its foundation down to the revolution, with the exception of
Rhode Island, (if, indeed, that state be an exception,) did
openly, by the whole course of its laws and institutions, support
and sustain, in some form, the Christian religion; and almost
invariably gave a peculiar sanction to some of its fundamental
doctrines. And this has continued to be the case in some of the
states down to the present period, without the slightest
suspicion, that it was against the principles of public law, or
republican liberty. Indeed, in a republic, there would seem to be
a peculiar propriety in viewing the Christian religion, as the
great basis, on which it must rest for its support and
permanence, if it be, what it has ever been deemed by its truest
friends to be, the religion of liberty...

§
1868. Probably, at the time of the adoption of the constitution
and of the amendment to it, now under consideration, the
general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that
Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state, so
far as was not incompatible with the private rights of
conscience, and the freedom of religious worship.
An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of
state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have
created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation.”

And
as is abundantly substantiated, the general Christian faith was
indeed encouraged while still preserving freedom of worship and
rights of conscience (yet which is not the same as freedom from
being offended), but which an official religion would violate.
Thus Story also wrote (read carefully),

§
1871. The real object of the amendment was, not to countenance,
much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by
prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among
Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical
establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive
patronage of the national government. It thus cut off the
means of religious persecution, (the vice and pest of former
ages,) and of the subversion of the rights of conscience in
matters of religion, which had been trampled upon almost from the
days of the Apostles to the present age....

§
1873. It was under a solemn consciousness of the dangers from
ecclesiastical ambition, the bigotry of spiritual pride, and the
intolerance of sects [and which restricted rights based on
religion], thus exemplified in our domestic, as well as in
foreign annals, that it was deemed advisable to exclude from the
national government all power to act upon the subject. The
situation, too, of the different states equally proclaimed the
policy, as well as the necessity of such an exclusion. In some of
the states episcopalians constituted the predominant sect; in
other presbyterians; in others, congregationalists; in other,
quakers; in others again, there was close numerical rivalry among
contending sects. It was impossible, that there should not arise
perpetual strife and perpetual jealousy on the subject of
ecclesiastical ascendancy, if the national government were
left free to create a religious establishment. The only
security was in extirpating the power [to create a national
religious establishment]. But this alone would have been an
imperfect security, if it has not been followed up by a
declaration of the right of the free exercise of religion, and a
prohibition (as we have seen) of all religious tests. Thus, the
whole power over the subject of religion is left exclusively to
the state governments, to be acted upon according to their
own sense of justice, and the state constitutions; and the
Catholic and Protestant, the Calvinist and the Arminian, the Jew
and the Infidel, may sit down at the common table of the national
councils, without any inquisition into their faith, or mode of
worship. (Joseph
Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. Cp.
XLIV (1833; http://www.constitution.org/js/js_344.htm)

Here
“a religious establishment” contextually refers to a
state religion such as was seen and still was to be allowed in
most states, but which state religion the federal government was
excluded from establishing. Thus rather than in states such as
Connecticut where Baptists had to support the Congressional
church, and or which mandated a religious test for candidates,
even an atheist could be elected, and not compelled to give
assent to religious creeds, or even faith in God, or support a
church.

But
which did not mean, as modern courts have ruled, that the federal
government could not favor one faith over another in a general
way, in practices and laws, reflective of the faith of the
Founders and that of the voters, and requires that all must asset
to moral laws and respect freedoms even if they are contrary to
their religion. And it cannot mean, as has been ruled recently,
that practices that offend someone's faith or lack thereof must
be rejected, which is an imposition that favors an ideology that
can itself be antagonistic against the faith of another. Rather,
the faith of the Founders and the voters must be what is
reflected in moral laws and practices, but which cannot compel
assent of heart to theological beliefs or partaking in customs
that affirm them (though there can be some interpretation as to
whether dissent would be justified on these grounds).

And
also in contrast to today, the 1st Amendment was
directed at the federal government (“Congress shall make
no...”), not the States, as Story affirms.

Among
the evidence that the Founders overall did not see the 1st
Amendment as excluding the government from recognizing
Christianity as lying at its foundations, and from generally
reflecting in basically non-polemical aspects of the faith of the
people, a Library of Congress Exhibition states,

Congress
appointed chaplains for itself and the armed forces, sponsored
the publication of a Bible, imposed Christian morality on the
armed forces, and granted public lands to promote Christianity
among the Indians. National days of thanksgiving and of
"humiliation, fasting, and prayer" were proclaimed by
Congress at least twice a year throughout the war. Congress was
guided by "covenant theology," a Reformation doctrine
especially dear to New England Puritans, which held that God
bound himself in an agreement with a nation and its people. This
agreement stipulated that they "should be prosperous or
afflicted, according as their general Obedience or Disobedience
thereto appears." Wars and revolutions were, accordingly,
considered afflictions, as divine punishments for sin, from which
a nation could rescue itself by repentance and reformation.

The
Continental-Confederation Congress, a legislative body that
governed the United States from 1774 to 1789, contained an
extraordinary number of deeply religious men. The amount of
energy that Congress invested in encouraging the practice of
religion in the new nation exceeded that expended by any
subsequent American national government. Although the Articles of
Confederation did not officially authorize Congress to concern
itself with religion, the citizenry did not object to such
activities. This lack of objection suggests that both the
legislators and the public considered it appropriate for the
national government to promote a nondenominational, nonpolemical
Christianity...

By
appointing chaplains of different denominations, Congress
expressed a revolutionary egalitarianism in religion and its
desire to prevent any single denomination from monopolizing
government patronage. This policy was followed by the
firstCongress under the Constitution which on April 15, 1789,
adopted a joint resolution requiringthat the practice be
continued...

Congress
was apprehensive about the moral condition of the American army
and navy and took steps to see that Christian morality prevailed
in both organizations. In the Articles of War, seen below,
governing the conduct of the Continental Army (seenabove)
(adopted, June 30, 1775; revised, September 20, 1776), Congress
devoted three of the four articles in the first section to the
religious nurture of the troops. Article 2 "earnestly
recommended to all officers and soldiers to attend divine
services." Punishment was prescribed for those who behaved
"indecently or irreverently" in churches, including
courts-martial, fines and imprisonments. Chaplains who deserted
their troops were to be court-martialed.
(http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel04.html)

Likewise
the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville states:

In
the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and
consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in
the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater
influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be
no greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human
nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the
most enlightened and free nation of the earth.

The
Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so
intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them
conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction
does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems
to vegetate in the soul rather than to live. (Democracy
in America, [New York: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1851), pp. 331,
332, 335, 336-7, 337;
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/religion/ch1_17.htm)

Such
testimony does not mean that all the Founders were orthodox
Christians (and see denominational adherences here),
nor that a few could not express some skepticism
of the Bible, and
an understandable aversiontowards
the institutionalized religion of their history, or
that all were Biblical Christians. Nor does it mean that, her
merchant ships being being attacked by Muslim pirates who were
holding her sailors for ransom, and seeking peace, not a holy
war, the government could pragmatically once precisely state that
“the Government of the United States” was not
actually “founded on the Christian religion in any sense,”
as it had no “character of enmity” against Muslims
and Islam (Treaty
of Tripoli and see here
on context). And which in that specified sense (not in “any
sense”) was reasonably accurate, and distinguished it from
the Muslim conception of a America being like European and
Christian theocracies. Yet in essence the Government of the
United States was contrary to Islam with its Sharia law and other
aspects, and what the Founders did not deny but rather affirmed
(as seen above) was that America itself was a “Christian”
nation overall, and based on the Christian faith. As even the
English writer and later atheist Harriet Martineau stated in
1837, “The
institutions of America are, as I have said, planted down deep
into Christianity. Its spirit must make an effectual pilgrimage
through a society of which it may be called a native.”
(Society
in America, p. 366)

A
theocracy is different than a state
that reflects and implicitly generally affirms and upholds a
basic Protestant faith of the people, in which separation of
Church and State is a part, so that the State does not run the
church (which in recent times it is increasingly attempting to
interfere in), or require membership or assent to its creeds, but
gives citizenship to peoples of various faiths, and in which no
church runs the State, even though again, it expresses the faith
of its founders and voters as they elect candidates that support
religion in general and what they believe. And thus it may
require submission to moral laws which may find their principal
support in religion.

Allowing
religion to influencing politicians, or politicians to influence
believers, such as who and what they commend and each vote for,
respectively, does not run counter to the mutual independence of
the Church and the State, and which was seen as advantageous to
both, while the emphasis should be against the State actual
interfering in the business of the Church. As James Madison (one
of stronger opponents of State religion) expressed, "(I)t
may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of
separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority
with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on
unessential points. The tendency to usurpation on one side or the
other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them,
will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinence of the Gov't
from interfering in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of
preserving public order, and protecting each sect agst.
trespasses on its legal rights by others." (James
Madison, in a letter to Rev Jasper Adams spring 1832, from James
Madison on Religious Liberty, edited by Robert S. Alley, pp.
237-238)

While
the Establishment Clause should not apply to the States, that it
need not preclude government sanction of the basic faith of the
Founders overall, and of the citizens, was illustrated by Horace
Mann, often called the “the father of American public
education,” and whose work in Massachusetts influenced the
direction of other states. Mann was not a Biblical Christian but
a Unitarian in the day when it still upheld the morality of the
Bible, and while he admitted that
“our
Public Schools are not Theological Seminaries,”he assured those
alarmed at that model that while his system was “debarred
by law from inculcating the peculiar and distinctive doctrines of
any one religious denomination amongst us,...or all that is
essential to religion or to salvation,.. [yet] our system
earnestly inculcates all Christian morals; it founds its morals
on the basis of religion; it welcomes the religion of the Bible;
and, in receiving the Bible, it allows it to do what it is
allowed to do in no other system,— to speak for itself.
(Mann,
Twelfth Annual Report for 1848 of the Secretary of the Board of
Education of Massachusetts. pp. 116,177

Thus
he supported Bible reading but without comment in order to
discourage sectarian bickering. Today that inculcation of
Christian morals on the basis of the welcome religion of the
Bible is something secularists protest against. Mann also stated,
“it
may not be easy theoretically, to draw the line between those
views of religious truth and of Christian faith which is common
to all, and may, therefore, with propriety be inculcated in
schools, and those which, being peculiar to individual sects, are
therefore by law excluded; still it is believed that no practical
difficulty occurs in the conduct of our schools in this regard.”
(Massachusetts.
Board of Education, “Annual report of the Board of
Education,” p. 14;
Stephen V. Monsma, J. Christopher Soper, “The Challenge of
Pluralism: Church and State in Five Democracies”, The
United States, cp. 2, p. 21)

This
meant that the State would not support the particular tenets of
any sect of Christians, while it yet supported inculcation of
Christian morals and aspects of the faith which were common to
all, and which reading the Bible, even without comment, passively
fostered and implicitly sanctioned. As using the Bible in schools
to support a particular Christian sect sometimes resulted in not
reading it all, Mann also stated that his position resulted in a
near universal use of the Bible in the schools of Massachusetts,
and that this served as an argument against the assertion by some
that Christianity was excluded from his schools, or that they
were anti or unchristian.(ibid,
Mann, Twelfth Annual Report, pp. 121,122)

(It
should be noted that it was Puritans places a high emphasis on
literacy — especially as regards the Bible — and
education, including on the university level, and Christian
groups started almost all of America's universities in the first
160 years after the Pilgrims. And it was the the increase in
Christian faith and religious diversity that paradoxically
fostered the secular school system, as again, it assured student
would not be subject to indoctrination of one particular sect,
while not being anti- or unChristian, but fostering its morals
and common faith. Today student are instead “indoctrinated”
in a ideology that is essentially increasingly contrary to
Christian faith and morals.)

Likewise,
practices such as opening up the House of Representatives for
regular religious services by a variety of Christian sects, and
which even Jefferson as President regularly attended, (Mrs.
Samuel Harrison Smith [Margaret Bayard], “The first forty
years of Washington society,” pp.13,15;
"Religion
and the Federal Government: PART 2")certainly has the
State aiding, and not simply accommodating, religious faith.

However,
even allowing expression of the basic common Christian faith is
what is increasingly made difficult today, as antiseptic
exclusion of any manner of sanction of religious faith, at least
the traditional Christian kind, is demanded by strict
separatists. The reason for their degree of success is because
the same principle by which the State reflects the beliefs and
values of the people, and which once was overwhelming a strong
Christian faith, also applies to any beliefs which the voters
consciously or unconsciously subscribe to. And in a post
Christian democracy this can result in seeing State support of
another religion, or that of an anti-religious State-sanctioned
ideology which largely functions as religion and requires assent
to its ethos. And although that should be prevented in a
democratic republic that interprets the Constitution consistent
with the revealed historical intent and the common faith behind
it, the voters can elect officials which result in interpreting
the Constitution as supporting a radically different exegesis of
the Constitution. As it was, it took over 150 years for
“enlightened” judges to outlaw teacher-led basic
prayer and official Bible reading in state-run public schools,
which had been widespread in beginning the school day. It is
stated that an estimated 75% of the school systems in the South
had Bible readings in 1962 when official prayer was banned.
(Colliers 1961 Yearbook,
p. 224)

I
do not mention this to affirm that that the State should require
(rather than allow) official prayer and basic Bible readings, but
that public schools should be able to choose to do so, especially
as per states rights, and that in any case the State will teach
something theologically, reflecting historical beliefs and
cultural customs. And as shown, historically the separation of
church and state accommodated expressions of faith, rather than
exclude it as strict seperationists seek to do, and thus
effectively supplant it with another “faith,” even
that which is behind the latest social experimentation
(protection and promotion of homosexuality,
etc.) that it now engages in.

It
should be understood here that the positive example of of such
things as prayer in not the only thing that is didactic, but the
negative is as well, as for the State to refuse to officially
express gratitude to and dependence upon a creator (unlike so
many Founders) is also a form of teaching, conveying that it owes
nothing and needs nothing from a creator, thus inculcating
atheism in its students, especially as it increasingly engages in
moral instruction and intolerance of expressions of faith. In
other words, if the State acts practically as an atheist then it
influences the students to do so, especially as they are ignorant
of the nuances of separation, and the meaning of the 1stAmendment is often
conveyed as being antagonistic against religion (not just
European-type theocracies) in contrast to the past. See also
History
of American Education andCause
and Effect.

Moreover,
divorcing interpretation of the Constitution from its
foundational Christian ethos leaves man as the supreme judge,
progressively resulting in ever increasingly
immorality, with its various costs, which necessitates a State
which increasingly grows in powers and fosters dependance upon
itself. However, when it increasingly becomes ungoverned by God
(via its voters in a democracy), it increasingly becomes
villainous, punishing well doing and rewarding evil, contrary to
its Scriptural charter. (Rm. 13:1-7; 1Pt. 2:14) Democracy is only
a tool, enabling voters to choose their leaders and policies, but
what they choose is a reflection of what they really believe.

As
John Adams warned, "Statesmen,
my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is
Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles
upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a
free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired
into our People in a greater Measure, than they have it now, they
may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they
will not obtain a lasting liberty. They will only exchange
Tyrants and Tyrannies." -
Letter to Zabdiel Adams, June 21, 1776

Militant
atheists
deny that their objectively baseless moral reasoning, which
atheistic men like Mao and Pol Pot operated out of, militates
against their arguments that atheism results in a superior
morality than that of Christianity, which they loosely define and
broad brush with Islam, etc., while many strive to blame the
atrocities of Hitler on the Bible and call him (and Stalin) a
Christian, while even denying that many of the Founders were.

However,
the term "Christian" should be defined by its source,
(Acts 17:26), which clearly disallows Hitler and Stalin as being
such, along with multitudes more. Paul, for one, was willing to
go to Hell if that would save the Jews, (Rm. 9:3) while affirming
that the judgment of God upon hard hearted and proud sinners, Jew
or Gentile, was just. (Rm. 1:26-2:2; 1Ths. 2:16)

Hitler,
much like atheists but unlike most of America’s Founders,
scorned not only corruptions of Christian faith but threw out the
whole faith as well. Though evidence shows he had some regard for
paganism, having loosed himself from the moral authority of the
Bible (while misappropriating it's "badge" at times for
political purposes), he was much free to be guided by his own
reasoning which is ultimately the atheistic basis for determining
morality. Sadly however, while an innate sense of right can
essentially conflate with the Bible, (Rm. 2) history abundantly
attests that this moral compass easily points south, even more so
than false religion and corruptions of the Christian faith (which
is not to “war after the flesh,” or rule over those
without, but by spiritual means “overcome evil with good:”
2Cor. 10:3; 1Cor. 5:12,13; Rm. 12:21; cf. Eph. 6:3; 2Cor. 6:1-10)